Julia Davis
Julia Davis is specific about the source of the dark humour that pervades her acclaimed body of work. She was studying English and Drama at a college in York when she developed glandular fever. She spent more than two years in bed at home in Bath.

"At that age that makes you question everything. If you're ill and you can't get better and you don't know why and you're prone to introspection then you are going to think about God and life and death and why, and stuff that maybe at 20 you shouldn't."
(From an interview with The Daily Telegraph, March 2004)

As part of a theatre group in Bath, she formed a double act with Jane Roth. They then formed an improvisation troupe along with Rob Brydon and Ruth Jones (seen in Little Britain, Fat Friends and Nighty Night).

Davis then secured a role in a Radio 4 comedy with Arabella Weir, who introduced her to Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan. The creators of Father Ted cast her in their sketch show Big Train, with Chris Morris slated to direct the pilot show. Morris then cast her in his series Blue Jam and its television offshoot, Jam.

After that, she sent a demo tape to Steve Coogan and found herself joining his national tour in 1998. Davis then co-wrote and starred in the award-winning Human Remains with Rob Brydon, a series of observational comedies about dysfunctional marriages. Brydon went on to even greater acclaim for Marion and Geoff, and Davis spent three years writing one of the darkest comedies seen on television to date - Nighty Night.

Her grotesque portrayal of anti-Heroine Jill only serves to enhance her reputation as one of the country's best new comics.